South African universities made a strong showing on a list of African universities released by a ranking site. Eight of the top ten varsities were in South Africa with the other two from Egypt.

This is according to the Africa edition of the January 2021 edition of the Webometrics Ranking of World Universities. Some key indicators used for the ranking were Presence, Impact, Openness, and Excellence.

Universities of Cape Town and Stellenbosch occupied the top two slots with University of Cairo in Egypt taking third spot. Fourth to sixth slot were occupied by South African institutions, universities of Kwazulu Natal, Johannesburg and South Africa respectively.

Egypt’s University of Alexandria, South African trio of Western Cape, Witwatersrand and Pretoria occupied seventh to tenth slots respectively.

It is at 13th spot that a third country makes the list - Kenya’s University of Nairobi. Uganda’s Makerere University follows before the University of Ghana. The topmost Moroccan varsity, University of Cadi Ayyad Marrakech, is at 16th spot.

Below we list the topmost universities across Africa in the top 100. You can also checkout the full ranking below.

Nigeria – University of Ibadan ranked 18th
Ethiopia – Addis Ababa University ranked 22nd
Tanzania – University of Dar es salaam ranked 41st
Algeria – Université des Sciences et de la Technologie Houari Boumediene ranked 42nd
Zimbabwe – University of Zimbabwe ranked 50th
Zambia – University of Zambia ranked 54th
Mauritius – University of Mauritius ranked 59th
Bostwana – University of Botswana ranked 74th
Senegal – Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar ranked 77th
Mozambique – Universidade Eduardo Mondlane ranked 81st
Sudan – University of Khartoum ranked 83rd
Benin - Université d'Abomey Calavi ranked 91st
Rwanda – university of Rwanda ranked 97th

The "Webometrics Ranking of World Universities" is an initiative of the Cybermetrics Lab, a research group belonging to the Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC), the largest public research body in Spain.

CSIC is among the first basic research organizations in Europe. The CSIC consisted in 2006 of 126 centers and institutes distributed throughout Spain.